Fatımatü'z-Zehra Hanım

Fatımatü’z-Zehrâ Hanım, whose date of birth could not be determined, was the wife of Şirvânî el-Hâc Abdullah Şâkir Efendi, one of the important figures of the late Ottoman ilmiye and legal circles.

Abdullah Şâkir Efendi taught higher religious sciences at Fatih Mosque and, after various religious-legal and scholarly duties, rose to the Anatolian kazaskerate. He served as a member of the Mecelle Commission and the Meclis-i İntihâb-ı Hükkâm-ı Şer‘î, the Council for the Selection of Judges.

Abdullah Şâkir Efendi, who also taught the Mecelle-i Ahkâm-ı Adliyye at the Law School, was one of the madrasa-trained teachers who played a role in transmitting the classical legal tradition within modern legal education.

The grave of Fatımatü’z-Zehrâ Hanım, together with that of her husband Abdullah Şâkir Efendi in the same cemetery, is one of the records completing the Şirvânî family’s ilmiye-legal circle around Fatih.

Fatımatü’z-Zehrâ Hanım died on the night of 30 Dhu al-Hijja 1324 (16 January 1907), five years after her husband, and was buried beside Abdullah Şâkir Efendi in the Fatih Mosque Cemetery.